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POLITICAL RECORD 



Senator F. A. SAWYEH, 



Congressman C. C. BOWEU, 



SOUTH CAROLINA. 



SENATOE F. A. SAWYER AS A REPUBLICAN. 

On my return to the city, afti-r a brief visit to Columbia, I found 
that Senator F. A. lawyer had, in a communication published in 
the Charleston Courier, attempted some sort of weak, diluted 
reply to the remarks which I had uttered on thf^ subject of his 
Republicanism in my speech of the 28th of July. 

In that communication, extended to the length of two colums and 
a half, I have looked in vain for any substantial defence against 
the charges preferred by me. He makes no denial of my oharge 
that he came to this city, originally, as a devout admirer of the old 
slave power of the South, and that he was chosen as a teacher by 
our Commissioners, from among his Northern competitors, because 
such was his character. He says nothing of his former or his present 
affiliations with the Democratic party. He does not disclaim that 
his chief counsellor at this day is a leading Democrat of this city. 
And he takes especial care to be silent about my allusions to his 
"sharp practice" in reference to the bills of the Bank of the State. 



Instead of this, which alone would have been relevant to tne sub- 
ject of discussion, he indulges in a strain of personal invective and 
scurrility, in which, as a "Carolina gentleman," (a term which he 
applies to me with a sinister motive,) I cannot attempt to compete 
with him. I presume that a "Massachusetts gentleman" would be 
as adverse as myself to the use of such weapons, borrowed from 
the armory of Billingsgate. 

His only attempt, except by unsupported assertions, to place 
himself in tue Republican ranks, is by an appeal to the record of 
how he stood in the rebellion. That certainly has nothing to do 
with his claim to Republicanism now. But I apprehend that if he 
had, at the time, belonged to that party, he would have been found, 
at the very commencement of the rebellion, rather in the army of 
the Republic fighting for the life of the nation, than remaining 
among its enemies and picking up a little addition to his income by 
indulging in the unpatriotic buisness of running the blockade at 
the expense of the revenues of the United States, at the same time 
that he gave "aid and comfort" to the Confederacy. Knowing, as 
I did, how easily he could have left the city at that time : know- 
ing that he and other Northern men had been invited by the 
authorities to depart from the Confederacy, unless they were willing 
to become its citizens, and knowing, too, that he had no ties of 
property or kindred to bind him to the State, not only I, but some 
others who saw his stalwart form and soldierly bearing at the 
Union Club, often thought that he was the right man in the wrong 
place. If every son of Massachusetts had been inspired with a feel- 
ing of loyalty akin to that which actuated tho course of Mr. 
Sawyer, that noble old State would have had no such glorious 
record as that which history now gives of its part in crushing the 
rebellion. 

I shall make no reply to Mr. Sawyer's defence of Mr. Clark. 
If Mr. Clark is competent to discharge the duties of a Collected- of 
Customs, he must certainly be able to defend himself. When he 
does so (if he ever does) it will be time enough for me to pay my 
compliments to him. I should like to hear him deny, in his own 
person, the charge that he sought the nomination of ihe Democratic 
party for the Mayorality. 

Neither shall I be diverted by the scurrilities of Senator Sawyer 
into a contest of personal invectives. My quarrel is a political one. 
I seek to save the Republican party from the results of his political 



3 

treachery. In that quarrel, and in that quarrel alone, will I fight 
until the battle id lost or won. 

To but a single sentence of this tirade of abuse will I make any 
reply. 

Mr. Sawyer insinuates that I belong to a "little knot of South- 
ern born men who recently proposed to each other to ignore and 
put down men not of Southern birth." 

I suspect til at Mr. Sawyer has here drawn upon his imagination 
or his invention. I know of no such "knot of Southern-born men," 
and have heard of no such proposition. As far as I am concerned 
it is simply^absurd. The principle which has governd my entire 
life — a principle which did much to keep me from the heresy of State 
sovereignty and the sin .of secession — is that in this united land, I 
recognize "no North, no South, no East, no West." Every man, 
wherever born within our vast dominion, is a citizen of one great 
empire, entitled everywhere to equal privileges. My warmest and 
truest friends at this day, in the Republican party, are men of North- 
ern or Western birth. To me, all honest Rpublicans are the same, 
no matter from what State they may come I do not denounce Mr. 
Sawyer, because Massachusetts gave him birth, but because the 
political course he is here pursuing, if pursued at Boston, would 
meet with the same just retribution that South Carolina will yet 
award to him. 

My main charge against Mr. Sawyer is that he is seeking to estab- 
lish a Conservative party in South Carolina, on the ruins of the 
Republican, by a sale to the Democrats if they will purchase him. 

The only comprehensible reply to this charge that he makes is 
contained in the following paragraph of his communication, of 
which, as an explicit recognition of the truth of my allegation, I 
give him the benefit of a republication, with his own italics : 

"It is quite time for S077ie Republicans to take notice that the peo- 
ple of South Carolina will give their voices for rcspectali/e and 
upright men who may not be Republicans, rather than for dishonest 
and disreputable men whose soundness on the party issues may be 
never so sure. The day when partisan soundness would offset and 
outweigh the want of all other requisites for preferment has hap- 
pily gone by or is now towards its close. If this be conservatism, 
let Dr. Mackey and his friends make the most of it." 

This i3 Senator Sawyer's first open bid tendered to the Democratic 
party. It will not, I presume, be accepted, because it is accompa- 



A 

nied with some sort of wtak qualification, which, although it 
means nothing, the Democrats will require to be stricken from the 
bond. 

But Mr. Sawyer has been too keen a speculator in blockade stock 
and in depreciated Bank Bills, to be driven from the market by a 
first refusal. His next bid will be without the qualification. 

Let me say to the gentlemen of the Democratic party that if 
they should buy the Senator at ever so low a price, they will be 
making a dear bargain. 

A. G. MACKEY. 



SENATOR SAWYER'S POLITICS AND LOYALTY. 

To the Editor of the Courier : — I request the privilege of your 
columns to make a response to the communication of Senator F, A. 
Sawyer,, which appeared in your issiie of the 4th instant. I pro- 
pose to review Mr. Sawyer's political record, as one of the Senators 
from South Carolina, and to meet the personal charges and insin- 
uations that he has made against me and my kinsmen in that 
communication. My line of defence against some of his asper- 
sions must necessarily be to "discredit the witness," otherwise, I 
should be driven into attempting the logical imposibility of "proving 
a negative." 

McGreoghan, in his admirable history of Ireland, devotes a chapter 
to "Snakes in Ireland," which chapter consists only of the single 
word "None." 

The writer who would treat of Senator Sawyer's "Republicanism" 
would be constrained, from the paucity of the subject, to be almost 
as brief as was the Celtic chronicler, when expounding the snakes 
of the Emerald Isle. That "Republicanism" begun immediately 
before Mr. Sawyer's election to the Tnited States Senate, and 
ended immediately after that election. To that position he was 
elected by a majority of one, (1) although he received the entire 
Democratic vote of our Legislature, while his competitor, (Dr. 



Mackey,) whom he affects to regard as representing only his own 
immediate family, received the majority of the votes cast by the 
professed Eepublieans in that body. Mr. Sawyer, in his commu- 
nication, admits that the Democrats thus suppoi-ted him, and adds : 
"I did not then, nor do I now, hold myself under one particle of 
obligation to them." But Mr. Sawyer has pleased to abandon this, 
for him, only vantage ground, and claims that he represents the 
Republican party of South Carolina. He even asserts himself to 
be, in his Republicanism, what Caesar declared he would have his 
wife to be — "above suspicion," as witness this opening paragraph 
of his defence : 

"Dr Mackey is too well known, and I am too well known in this 
immediate community, to make it requisite to defend myself from 
charges of obliquity or tergiversation in political or other affairs." 

This is the very sublime of impudence ! It is so admirably cool 
as to need no ice, even in this torrid August day ! 

If — as Rochefoucauld says — "hypocrisy is the homage that vice 
pays to virtue," then this asseveration by Sawyer, of his Republi- 
can chatisty, must be regarded as one of the highest tributes ever 
paid to political integrity. 

In proof of this opinion, I cite the following facts ; 

The Legislature that elected Mr. Sawyer to the United States 
Senate, was composed almost entirely of colored men, all of whom 
claimed to be, and doubtless wore, earnest Republicans. To all of 
those he gave either an express or an implied assurance, that he 
was in hearty accord with their political views, yet as a Senator of 
the United States, he voted in opposition to the Republican ma- 
jority of the Senate, against a measure designed to secure from 
probable defeat the proposed Fifteenth (l5th) Amendment to the 
Constitution of the United States ; an amendment which will guar- 
antee to the colored man forever the right of sufferage, and which 
will set the broad seal of the Constitution upon the new patent of 
American citizenship to be granted to all men, without regard to 
"race, color, or previous condition of servitude." 

On this point I submit the record, as it appears in the "Daily 
Globe" — the official paper of Congress — of April 10th, 1869, and 
in the New York Tribune of the same date : 

"The House Reconstruction Bill being under discussion, Mr. 
Morton offered an additional section providing that before Virginia, 
Mississippi and Texas shall be admitted to representation in Con- 



6 

gress, tlieit several Legislatures shall ratify the Fifteenth Amend- 
ment to the Constitution." 

The Democrats of the Senate voted solid against this proposition, 
and among them we fiud, voting "nay," "F. A. Sawyer, of South 
Carolina." 

It is u.niversally admitted, and will not be denied hy any jour- 
nalist in this Statf, either Democratic or Republican, that without 
this condition precedent to the admission of the unreconstructed 
States, the proposed Fifteenth Amendment would fail of adoption. 
Yet after this vote, Mr. Sawyer has the effrontery to say in his reply 
to Dr. Mackey, "I accept the platform ho (Dr. M.) lays down as 
the principles inscribed on the banners of Republicanism, namely: 
equal political rights to all men of every race, protection to labor, 
free speech, free schools and a free ballot.'''' 

"And what is better than accepting them on a banner or on 
paper; I have spoken, written, voted and worked for them, without 
change of purpose or cessation of effort." 

Let the reader view this declaration of Sawyer's in the jight of 
Sawyer's vote, above given, and he will agree with me, that here- 
after, when a politician in this State requires a strong expletive to 
characterize some bold denial of a known fact, he will be very apt 
to call it "a Sawyerism." 

But to return to Mr. Sawyer's political treachery, or as he 
phrases it, "obliquity and tergiversation," two words which may 
be regarded as "great guns," taken from his arsenal of language. 
Mr. Sawyer, not content with his endeavor to defeat (virtually) the 
Fifteenth Amendment proposed and advocated "without cessation 
of effort," and finally secured the adoption of an amendment to the 
House Reconstruction Bill, providing for the submission of the 
Constitutions of Virginia, Texas and Mississippi — striking out the 
words "the registered voters of said State," and inserting instead 
the words "Voters of said State registered at the time of said sub- 
mission." 

The adoption of this Sawyor amendment made a Democratic 
triumph certain in the election then pending in Virginia, and was 
doubtless so designed by its proposer. The necessary effect of this 
change will appear when it is remembered that a registration of the 
voters in Virginia was had last fall, pursuant to Act of Congress, 
and vast numbers of the Democl'ats stood upon, their dignity, and de- 
clined to register. Hence it was the natural desire of the Repub- 



licans to proceed to an election on the old registration, as this 
would have insured their success. Mr. Sawyer's amendment, 
however, authorized a new registration, thereby opening wide the 
door to a system of fraud %ud intimidation, and ending last July 
in tho utter defeat of the Ropublican party in Virginia. 

The Washington correspondent of the New York Tribune, writ- 
ing of the debate on this occasion, under date of April 9, says : 
" The House Bill providing for elections in Mississippi, Virginia 
and Texas was immediately taken up, and after two hours had 
been consumed by the Democrats, repeating their old arguments, 
it was passed with certain amendments. 

"The most important of the amendments were Mr. Morton's 
proposition, making a pre-requisite of admission to representation 
in Congress, that these three States ratify the Fifteenth xAmend- 
ment, and one by Mr. Saicyer, providing that the election on the 
adoption of the Constitutions shall be held under the neiv registra- 
tAon. This (Sawyer's) is a very important amendment, as iu 
Virginia alone there are not less than fifteen thuu.<(and (15,000) 
whites (Democrats) on the new registration who were not on the 
old list." 

Mr. Sawyer cannot plead that he acted in ignorance of the facts, 
in proposing his amendment, for the entire Republidan press, both 
in Washington and Virginia, had openly opposed the new regis- 
tration. Suffice it to say, that Mr. Sawyer, as he gazes upon the 
broken and defeated Eepublican party in Virginia, cannot exclaim, 
as did the horror stricken Macbeth, to the Ghost of Banquo : — 
"Thou can'stnot say I did it ! Never shake thy gory locks at me !" 

So much for Mr. Sawyer's record as United States Senator. 
I have shown that on the (/nly party issue that has arisen since 
his advent in the Senate — an issue most vital to the very existence 
of the Republican party in the Soutliern States — he voted against 
that party, which he now so shamelessly affects to represent. 

I now propose to show that Mr. Sawyer is not a credible witness, 
upon the matters of fact alleged by him. He says : "The fault 
found with him, (Dr M.,) as Collector of Customs, was, that he 
managed the Federal patronage of his ofBce so ill, that he was 
willing not only to administer the oath of July 2d, 1862, known as 
the test oath, to those who were known to him as unable to take 
that oath, without falsely swearing, but insisted by his acts, cer- 
tainly, if not by his words, on retaining more or less of such fore- 
sworn men in office." 



This is certainly a novel doctrine, both in law and ethics, that 
the administrator of an oath should be held responsible for the 
guilt incurred by the man who takes it. 

The Collector was not the conscience-feeper of any officer of the 
Customs, and did not and could not know that any one had falsely 
sworn in taking the oath of office before him. If this theory of 
responsibility on the part of every administrator of au oath falsely 
taken be correct, the reader will perceive, from the following affi- 
davits, in what an awkward position "bluff old Ben Wade," the 
President of the Senate, was placed by his having administered 
the oath of office, known as the iron-clad oath, to Senator Sawyer. 

As Messers. Sawy6r and Bowen are now the Damon and Pythias 
of political life, I append, first, the following copy of an affidavit 
by C. C. Bowen, taken from the Washington Globe of July 24, 
1868, the original of which is now on file in the United States 
Senate : 

"District of Columbia, ) 
Washington County. ^ 

Personally appeared before me, a Notary Public in and for said 
District and Couuty, duly authorized by law to administer oaths, 
C. C Bowen, a member of Congress from the Second Congressional 

District of South Carolina, and , a citizen of Charleston, in 

said State, who being duly sworn, depose and say, that they are- 
well and personally acquainted with Frederick A. Sawyer, who 
claims to have been elected a Senator of the United States, by virtue 
of an election held in the city of Columbia, by the Legislature of 
South Carolina, on the 16th day of July, 1868, and your deponents 
further declare that they have good and sufficient reasons to believe, 
and do believe, that the said Sawyer is not eligible to hold a seat 
in the Senate of the United States, by reason of the fact, tohich can 
be fully slMion by credible ivitnesses, whose names are hereto attached, 
that the said Saivyer tvas engaged in aiding and abetting tlie rebel- 
lion against the Government of the United States, in the years 1862, 
1863 and 1864, by being a shareholder in a blockade company, en- 
gaged in running the blockade at the port of Charleston, South 
Carolina, and in furnishing material of war to the so-called Confed- 
erate States, and aid and comfort to the supporters thereof ; and in 
support of this averment deponents present the following list of 
witnesses," to wit : 

" And deponents further declare that they have good and suffi. 



9 

cient reasons to believe, and do believe, that the said Sawyer was a 
member of a military organization in armed hostility to the 
Government of the United States, in the city of Charleston, in the 
yearl8G4; and that he did military duty as a member of said 
organization, known as the * Charleston" Home Guard.' 

"And deponents further declare, that they are informed and 
bolievo that the said Sawyer, despite the facts herein alleged, did 
take the oath of July '2d, 1862, as Collector of Internal Eevenue for 
the Second Congressional District of South Carolina in the year 
1865. 

(Signed) C. C BOWEN. 

#* ###### 

''Subscribed and sworn to before me, this 20th day of July, 1868. 
JOHN F. C'ALLAX, Notary Public." 

Mr. Sawyer will hardly attempt to discredit his "own witness." 

This affidavit was laid before the Senate on Mr. Sawyer's pre- 
senting his ci'edentials to that body. The Senate, after long debate, 
decided to admit him to his seat, on the purely technical ground, 
that the possession of the certificate of election entitled him to his 
seat in the first instance, and that any procedure to prove him ineli- 
gible, must be prosecuted after he became a member of the body. 
Seventeen Senators, headed by Mr. Sumner, and including Senators 
Wilson, Howard, Morton, Drake and Sherman, voted and spoke 
against his admission. 

I now append an extract from the deposition of one who is a 
most " friendly witness" for Mr. Sawyer, having breathed the 
breath of official life from his nostrils, and lives and moves, and 
has his (political) being in the "great" Senator : 
State op South Carolina., } 
County of Chvkleston, ) 

Personally appeared, J D. Geddings. of the State and County 
aforesaid, who being duly sworn, deposes and says, that he was 
a resident of the city of Charleston during the entire period of the 
late war, and that he is at present Assistant Treasurer of the United 

States. 

« # # # # # ## # # # # 

Said deponent further says, in reference to a charge alleged to 
have been made by certain persons, that said Sawyer aided the 
rebellion by being engaged in blockade running, that this deponent 
was fully cognizant of the connection of said Saivyei- ivith that 



10 

business, and that the facts are as follows, namely: Some time in 

1863, said Sawyer became possessed of a small interest, (less than 
$100 in good value,) in a schooner intended to be laden with cotton 
to run the blockade, and this interest was taken by him on the ex- 
press condition that said schooner should not return to the States 
in rebellion, but that vessel and cargo should be sold^ on arrival at 
a foreign port, and the net proceeds of sale should be returned to 
the shareholders. in sterling exchange, said Sawyer declaring that 
he would have no part or lot in introducing supplies of any kind 
into the States in rebellion. 

This deponent further says,- that the said vessel and cargo was 
sold in Nassau, New Providence, and the net proceeds thereof 
were returned to the shareholders in sterling exchange as aforesaid. 
Said deponent further says, that said Sawyer did, in September, 

1864, succeed in a project long before entertained by him, ivhereby he 

escaped from the States in rebellion. 

# # # * # # # * ** * 

(Signed) J. D. GI^DDINGS. 

Sworn and subscribed this eighteenth day of July, 1868, 
before me, 

J. W BROWNFIELD, 0. C. P. G. S. 

Mr. Geddiugs' affidavit is sufficiently full for my purpose, yet he 
is certainly mistaken in the extent of Mr. Sawyer's blockade ope- 
rations, and his deposition is actually amusing, where it intimates 
that Mr. Sawyer was only engaged in a sort of a " National Union 
Patriotic Blockade Company." 

He is utterly misinformed when he states that Mr. Sawyer 
" escaped" from this city, for it is universally known among the 
citizens of Charleston that he received a written pass to go through 
our lines, and was sent out to the United States fleet in our harbor, 
by flag of truce in open day, with many other persons, the Confed- 
erate authorities extending every courtesy to him and his family. 

In view of this exhibit, the reader will judge whether it was 
either just or politic in Mr. Sawyer to charge any man with being 
^^ foreswornJ*^ 

" Foresworn" indeed ! 

Mr. Sawyer must either vindicate himself against those charges 
that I now brand upon his forehead, or he must be universally re- 
garded as an interloper in the ranks of honorable men. 

T. J. MACKEY. 

Charleston, S. C, August 1, 1869. 



11 



A DISSECTION OF THE REPLY OF CONGEESSMAN C C. 

BOWEN. 

Like Midshipman Easy, I find myself engaged iu "a triangular 
duel," and having, I hope, disposed of one of my antagonists, I am 
now to direct my fire upon the other. It is true that Mr. C. C. 
Bowen, not having in his early daysf)aid much attention to those 
elementary sciences, which a late London Alderman designated 
as "the three E's., Reading, Riting and Rithmetic," has placed 
himself behind the body of a friend more skillful offence, and bor- 
rowed the services of an ''accomplished letter writer" to do his dirty 
work. But for the purposes of discussion I am forced to consider 
and treat Mr. Bowen's letter as if it really were his own production. 

Many of the statements made by Mr. Bowen are incapable of 
proof or disproof. When he refers to language used in private 
interviews, the very nature of the interview precludes the posibili- 
ty of his introducing any testimony to prove that the language 
was used, or of my introducing any to prove that it was not. In 
cases of this kind the assertion of each disputant must be taken 
for what it is worth. 

It is proper that I should say, in the very beginning of this dis- 
cussion, that I shall be compelled repeatedly to brand Mr. Bowen 
with willful falsehood. The reader will have to judge for himself 
who of the two is to be believed. My record is before the commu- 
nity in which I have lived for more than sixty yaars. I shall say 
nothing of it. Mr. Bowen's record is also before the community, 
and of that it will be necessary that I should say a few words. 

That record says that originally C. C. Bowen was a professed 
gambler of the lowest class, and that while pursuing that not very 
reputable occupation iu this city, he feloneously abstracted from 
one of his confederates the implements of his trade, and with them 
fled to New York, where he sold them. 

That record further states, that being an officer in the Confede- 
rate army, he was cashieredfor the commission of fraud, by a court 
martial, where the charge was clearly proved. 

There are other passages in his record, but as these are enough 



to place him beyond the pale of all honoreble men, and wholly to 
discredit his evidence, I shall, as to the rest, give him the mercy of 
silence. 

Now I wish it to be distinctly understood that I have not made 
these charges in any spirit uf malignity, and that I deplore the ne- 
cessity of using such language— ;-language that in numerous discus- 
sions I have never before employed in reference to any other 
opponent. But Mr. Bowen compels me to this course. He has, by 
his reckless assertions, reduced our contest almost, altogether^ to a 
question of voracity between himself and me. It is therefore my 
right, nay more, is it my duty to discredit him if I can, by showing 
that from the baseness of his antecedent life he has rendered him- 
self unworthy to be believed. 

I owe it, however, to myself to say that when I supported Mr. 
Bowen for Congress, I was not cognizant of this baseness of his 
character. Had I then been aware of it he would not, witli my 
consent, have been elevated to the position which he now so un- 
worthily fills. The Republican party will, I trust, exonorate me 
from the charge of knowingly foisting such a character upon it. 

I now proceed to a dissection of his reply, and in doing so will not 
spare the subject under my scalpel. 

Mr. Bowen says: "In that month (July, 1868) I went with Dr. 
M., who was in Washington, to the Treasury Department, to see 
what could be done to clean out the Custom House of the Demo- 
cratic employees. Dr. Mackey was there informed, in my hearing, 
that his recommendation would be regarded as good cause for 
removal and appointment." 

This statement is a deliberate falsehood. In July, 1868, 1 went 
to the office of thfe Commissioner of Customs, not "to see what 
could be done to clean out the Custom House," for at that time that 
subject had never been broached, but to complain of the conduct of 
one Dutch, a contemptible spy or detective of the Treasury, who 
-had unwarrantably interf erred in the Senatorial election. To give 
greater force to my complaint, I had invited Messrs. Goss and 
Bowen, members of Congress, to accompany me. The complaint 
having been made, we left the building, having seen no other offi- 
cer. The Commissioner of Customs has nothing to do with appoint- 
ments, and is a man too well acquainted with the duties of bis 
office to have given any such assurance. And my influence at that 
time with the Secretary, who alone could have given that assumnce, 



13 

is best shown by the' fact that on the next day my own. remova 
was recommended to the Senate. 

Mr. T. J. Mackey, to whose appointment he alludes in this con- 
nection, as the result of this supposititious interview with the 
Secretary, was not appointed at my suggestion, but upon the request 
of certain Congressional powers at Washington, whose influence 
in his behalf was exerted upon the Department. 

Mr. Bowen says : "1 must, however, do Mr. Mackey the justice 
to say that he expressed a willingness to remove the Deputy Col- 
lector, if his son Arthur could be put in his place." 

This is another falsehood, but one which assumes that form 
which logicians call "the suppression of truth." It would not be 
worth noticing, were it not that its covert intention is to charge 
me with undue nepotism in the distribution of offices. The truth 
is simply this : Mr. Bowen proposed the removal of the Deputy 
Collector. I was opposed to it ; first, because that gentleman had 
left an excellent situation in New York to take the office of Deputy, 
at my request , and secondly, because I knew that he was a Repub- 
lican, and had never voted any but the Eepublican ticket in his life. 
But Mr. Bowen, pressing his removal on the ground that he was 
not an active, working Republican, I at length consented, but at 
the same time expressed my unwillingness to take any untried and 
inexperienced man in the place ; because my responsibilities, and 
those of my bondsmen, for the conduct of the Deputy Collector, 
were too great to permit me to assume such a risk. I refused to 
hazard my property and character, except in the hands of one who 
I knew to be faithful to iny interests, and competent to discharge 
the duties of the office ; and as I knew no one here who could ful- 
fill both of these requisites, except my son, I said that if the 
present Deputy was to be removed, I must put my eon in his place. 
Every man who is acquainted with the buisnees of the Custom 
House, and the peculiar relations existing between the Collector 
and his Deputy, will say that I was justified in the course I pur- 
sued. But that I was not anxious to elevate my son to that posi- 
tion, is evident from the fact that the Deputy Collector remained in 
office until my own removal. 

Again, Mr. Bowen says : "The whole Congressional delegation 
from South Carolina recommended a good staunch Republican for 
a position in the Custom House. For the sake of courtesy this 
paper was sent to Dr. Mackey for his approval, before presentation 
to the President'' 



14 

tthort as this statement is, it contains an untruth. The person 
recommended was Dr. M. H. Collins ; the position for which he 
was recommended was that of an appraiser. The paper sent to me 
was a private letter from Mr Bowen, asking me to recommend the 
nomination. To this was appended a brief request of the same 
purport signed by Mr. Sawyer, 

"The whole Congresional delegation from South Carolina" did 
not sign it. Dr. Collins had other papers of an older date in iiis 
possession, signed by several prominent members of the party, 
recommending him for an entirely different position. 

Mr. Bowen says again : "When the paper was presented to the 
ex-Collector, he threw it down contemptuously, stamped on it in 
rage, and said 'he was* the Collector, and did not propose to be dicta- 
ted to by anybody.' " 

All of this is grossly false. The request contained in Mr. 
Bowen's letter was that I would give '•an immediate approval of 
his nomination for appraiser." I declined, but in courteous terms, 
to do so, for two reasons. In the first place, I was better ac4uaint- 
ed than Mr. Bowen with the proper qualifications of an Appraiser, 
and without intending offence to Dr. Collins, I might have believed 
that he did not possess those qualifications. AVith that belief I 
could not, as an honest man, give the required approval. And, 
secondly, the nomination was n<>6'in my gift. I had no more to do 
with it than I had with that of Collector of Internal Hevenue. 
The office was a Presidential appointment, and I couid not, without 
officious interference, have volunteered an opinion to the President 
as to whom he should nominate. But I said to Dr. Collins, and I 
wrote to the same effect to Mr. Bowen, that if he would take the 
responsibility of nominating Dr. Collins as an Appraiser, I should 
make no opposition, and if appointed, he should be treated with 
all the courtesy and kindness that I was accustomed to extend to 
every officer who did his duty. My approval was not necessary, 
and if Mr Bowen had been sincere in his professions to Dr. Collins 
why did he not, on my assurance of acquiescence, Avhich was all 
that Dr. Collins asked, make the nomination and secure the 
appointment. I challenge him to produce my letter to him. His 
to me is ready for the perusal of any one who is curious to know 
how some members of Congress, who make promises which they 
probably do not care to fulfill, can seek to throw the odium of their 
duplicity on the shoulders of others. 

Again, Mr. Bowen says : "On my return to Charleston / did 



15 

inform Dr. Mackey why the rtmninations ivere stopped^ and gave 
as a reason that the white man nominated had never been known 
as a Republican, and that the colored men were not working^ active 
Republicans, though they might liave voted the Eupublican ticket." 

•'Lord, Lord," quoth Falstaff, "how this world ia given to lying." 
This is one of the most unmitigated falsehoods in the whole of this 
truthless production. Nothing but the duty I owe to the Republi- 
can party to expose a traitor, could have induced me, after I first 
read the above cited paragraph, to hold a moment's further 
communication with one so utterly regardless of every principle of 
honor. My nature loathes such creatures as men turn with disgust 
from a contact with slimy sei-pents. 

Mr. Bowen " on his return to Charleston" did not inform me 
why the nominations wore stopped, bixt, on the contrary, with signal 
duplicity, expressed an entire ignorance of the cause, and explicitly 
declared that he had had nothing to do with it. And I will show 
by his subsequent court e that he could not have assigned the rea- 
son that he says he did, unless he combined in his own nature the 
two characters of knave and fool. 

To place this matter in its true light, I shall have to publish a 
letter of Mr. Bowen to nie, accompanied by his recommendation of 
a list of nominations which he desired me to make. This is the 
"list" referred to in my speech, and of which he says that "I did 
not deem it safe to read the names contained in it." Mr. Bowen 
will now be gratified, and after reading my comfnentary he will be 
able to say whether there was danger to him or to me in its publi- 
cation. I am inclined to believe that if he were familliar with 
Shakspeare he would be ready to exclaim, "Is not this a lamen- 
table thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made 
parchment ? That pai'chment being scribbled o'er, should undo a 
a man ? I did but seal once to a thing and T was never mine own 
man since." But here is the letter and list : 

" Chableston, S. C. May 28, 1869. 
Hon.' A. G. Mackey, Collector of Customs, Charleston, S. C: 

De.vk Sir: — I have the honor to submit the subjoined list of 
persons for your consideration, with the request that you will re- 
commend them to the Secretary of the Treasury for the popitions 
in your department set opposite their names Trusting the same 
will be satisfactory to yourself, I remain, very truly, your friend, 

C. BOWEN." 



16 

1 

On the second page of the same letter was the following : 
" List of Persons recommended for Appointments in the Custom 

House, CJiarkstan, S. C, hy C. C. B.: 

John Tuoraey, Appraiser, vice B. J. Parker. 

W. C. Birney, Abstract Clerk, vice P. H. Cantwell. 

James Dobbins, Abstract Clerk, vice B. G. Shaffer. 

L. F. Wall, Storekeeper, vice Horlbeck. 

Stephen Maxwell, Inspector, vice Washington. 

Chas. N. Hoyt, Inspector, vice Cudworth. 

Jared Dennis, Inspector, vice J. Y. Savage. 

Joseph Quash, Inspector, vice Moroso. 

F. H. Carmand, Inspector, vice Cramer 

Wm. Grant, Night Inspector, vice James Erwin. 

John B. Mushiugton, Night Inspector, nee Webb. 

Hamilton Slawson, Steamboat Inspector, vice Hughes. 

T. Garerty, Steamboat Inspector, vice Kirkwood. 

Richard Forrest, Watchman, vice O'Lara, 

Peter Miizye, Watchman, oice McMerherny, 

Joseph Greene, Porter, vice Hargrave." 

Now for the commentary. The names sent on by me on the 
loth April, whose confirmation was stopped by Mr. Bowen, were 
those of J. P. Hughes, Stephen J. Maxwell, William A. Grant 
and Joseph Quash. The last three were colored men. 

Mr. Bowen says that the colored men nominated by me on the 
15th April, " were not working, active Republicans,^^ hence he 
opposed their confirmation. 

Again Mr. Bowen says : " Sometime subsequently to this, a list 
of men known to be good working Pepublicans, at least half of 
whom were colored men, and all believed to be competent for the 
positions for which they were recommended, was sent by the hands 
of General Jno. B. Dennis to the Collector, Avith the request that 
they should be reeomraended by him for appointment." 

Will the reader now be kind enough to inspect the list above 
published, and which Mr. Bowen says was " a list of men known 
to be good working Republicans." In that list he will find the 
names of Messrs. Maxwell, Grant and (iuash, recommended by 
him to me as " good working Republicans," but whose confirma- 
tion he had secreth' opposed only ten days before at Washington, 
because, as he says, they, " tlie colored men, were not working, 
active EeptfbHcans." 
A- 



17 

His contradictions show liow reckless he is of truth, and should 
teach him the wisdom of the proverb, tiiat " liars should have good 
memories." Either he played false in saying that these geutle- 
mou were not good working Eepublicanp, and, therefore, in 
opposing their confirmation, or he was false in recommending them 
afterwards to me as good Eepublicans. Let him take either horn 
of the dilemma. But mark this man's further duplicity. After 
recommending to me the names of Messrs. Quash and Grant, and 
agreeing with me at my house, on the 28th of May, that he would 
proceed forthwith to Washington and urge their confirmation, he 
goes the next day to that city and opposes their confirmation, so 
that Messrs. Grant and Q,uash were not appointed. The English 
language affords no words oxpre.ssive of such conduct with which 
I would defile the columns of a respectable journal. 
~ Mr. Boweh says in continuation : " This list excited another 
burst of that indignation of which Dr. Mackey always has a stock 
on hand " 

It is pleasant to hear a half dozen words of truth form the lips 
of the Congressman, although looking to the length of his com- 
munication they are " as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels 
of chaff," I thank Heaven that the insolence of any man "dressed 
in a little brief authority," has always excited and will ever excite, 
I hope, my indignation. Well do they eay that "Dr. Mackey 
cannot be managed." I have no intention, in any position that I 
may occupy, to play the part of a mere tool. No man, I 
was resolved, should say that Dr. Mackey was the Collector, but 
that Senator Sawyer and Congressman Bowen "ran the Custom 
House." If it suits the temperament of my successor to be placed 
for the lucre of gain in this contemptible position, I have nothing 
to say, but that is a matter of taste, and my palate revolts at the 
morsel. 

Speaking of the interview at my house where the nominations 
to be sent to Washington were agreed upon, Mr. Bowen says : "I 
heard them through patiently, listened to their proposals, and 
rising to go, pointed to my own list, and^ (»aid. 'if you take my 
advice you will appoint those men.' " 

The audacity of this falsehood is .-^uch that I am compelled to 
borrow language in which to reply to it, and to say to Congress- 
man Ho wen, in the words of Congreve : "Ferdinan Mendez Pinto 
was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitxide." 



18 

But my taste and all the associations of my life make me recoil 
with contempt and disgust from further discussion with one so re- 
gardless of every principle of honor. I see plainly that our Con- 
gressman has followed, without knowing it, the advice of Sir Toby 
Belch to Sir Andrew Aguecheek: " As many lies as will lie in thy 
sheet of paper, although that sheet were big enough for the bed of 
Ware, in England, set it down." And I am weary of detecting 
and denouncing what Touchstone calls "the lie circumstantial and 
the lie direct." It is sufficient to say that the assertions in the 
latter part of his communication are just as false as those in the 
former part. I shall, therefore, abstain from any more detail, and 
conclude with a brief statement of what were the facts in relation 
to the appointments of the Custom House. 

When Mr. Johnson, by whose Administration! was hampered, 
went out of power, there were thirty-one employees in the Custom 
House whose nomination was in my gift. Of these sixteen were 
Republicans, a majority of whom were members of the League, 
and fifteen Democrats. By the 15th of April, which was as soon 
as I had recovered from my illness, contracted on the 4th of March, 
I had displaced two Democrats and recommended the removal of 
four more. These four were retained by Mr. Bowen's exertions 
against my Republican nominations. On the 2'^th of May, having 
agreed with him upon a list, I nominated ten Republicans to take 
the place of ten Democrats. Seven of these only were confirmed, 
Mr. Buwen still working against my Republican nominations and 
keeping Democrats, whose removal I had recommended, in place. 
One of those three resigned upon my request to him. So that on 
the 26th of June, when I was removed from office, because, as Mr. 
Bowen says, I would do nothing for the Republicans, the role of 
the Custom House stood as follows : Whole number of employees, 
thirty (30) — Republicans, twenty-five ; Democrats, five. Notwith- 
standing the opposition of Mr: Bowen, I had succeeded in reducing 
the Democratic list from fifteen to five, and in increasing the Repub- 
lican from sixteen to twenty-five. If Mr. Bowen had aided me, as 
he had pledged himself to do, the twenty-five Republicans would 
have been increased to twenty-eight, and the Democrats reduced 
to three. The place of the resigned Democrat, which continued 
vacant, would have been filled by a Republican. 

With this statement, I leave the Republican party to judge who 
has served that party, and who has worked to betray it. 

A. O. MACKEY. 



19 



A LEAF FEOM THE EECOED OF CEIME. 



AEEAIGNMENT OF C. C. BOWEN. 



TO THE PUBLIC. 



In his recent defence of himself from the charge of "political 
treachery," C. C. Bowen was pleased to make me the subject of 
personal reflections and insinuations, designed to injure my reputa- 
tion abroad, although they will doubtless have the effect, aa 
emanating from him; to commend me to all honorable men who 
know his personal history. I propose to reply briefly to those 
reflections, and show from the record that C. C. Bowen is not a 
credible witness upon a question of fact. I regret that I am 
obliged to make this reply during his absence from the city ; but 
the vices, like virtues, flourish together, and C. C. !Bowen has 
added cowardice to slander by flying from Charleston as soon as 
he had placed the manuscript of his scurrilous article in the 
hands of the printer. 

Eeferring to Dr. Mackey's removals and appointments in the 
Custom House, Bowen states, in his communication, "He (Dr. M.) 
came home and recommended the removal of ex-Confederate 
Surgeon Dupont, and the appointment of ex- Confederate Captain ^f 
T. J. Mackey, the man who was once indicted for violating the 
neutrality laws in the days of gray-eyed Walker, of Nicaraguan 
fame ; subsequently is said to have made unusually profitable use 
of a petition for pardon of a mail robber; was well known in Texas., 
(a State in which they are doubtless worse men than he;) was 
afterwards some kind of a ranger in the Confederate army, then 
something else in Texas, then a clerk in the Freedmau's Bureau 
in Washington ; for a brief period titular private secretary to 
Governor Scott, and chief fugleman and destroyer of his brother's 



20 

chances for senatorial honors, from which laborious but unprofita- 
ble station he was promoted to foreign entr;y clerk in the Charleston 
Custom House" 

It will be seen that Mr. Bowen charges that I am an "ex-Con- 
federate captain," a charge which, made in connection with his 
allegation that persons "disqualified" hy law were retained in the 
Custom House by Dr. Mackey, could have been meant only to con- 
vey the impression that I am embraced in this class. Yet Bowen 
knows that my name is included in the very act of- Congress by 
which he himself was relieved of his political disabilities, passed 
June -JG, 1868. I admit that I am an ex Confederate. I was a 
captain of engiueers in the Confederate army, which I entered as 
a citizen of South Carolina, in obedience to the accepted political 
code of my people. In that capacity I served actively for near four 
years as the chief engineer of important military districts ; served in 
many battles on the staff of General Sterling Price — a hero worthy 
to have worn the white plume of Navarre ; and I followed the 
varying fortunes of that noble chief to their sad but honorable close. 
I then surrendered my sword, he preferring to die in exile rather 
than stoop his lofty crest to the conqueror, even though that con- 
queror represented, as he did, the flag of his country that gave pro- 
tection alike to the victor and the vanquished. 

In the course of that service, I performed no act unworthy of a 
good soldier, or a man of honor. 

But how stands it with C C. Bowen, whose name, by a civic 
fiction, now bears the prefix "Honorable?" 

He is a New England man. born and reared in Rhode Island, 
near the very altar of liberty. He entered the Confederate army 
as a lieutenant of cavalry, and after an ignominious career of two 
years, he was cashiered (as I can show by the official record before 
me) for the crime of forgery I 

It is also true that I was indicted with General Walker on the 
charge of violating the neutvality laws of the United States, but I 
have yet to learn that this fact could detract from my stiuidiiig as 
a gentleman. Immediately after my trial and acquittal on that 
charge, I was appointed by the authorities ;it Washington as Ex- 
aminer of United States surveys for Kansas and Nebraska. 

I was not a clerk, but the Examiner of A.ccounts. in the Freed- 
men's Bureau, and in that capacity I became acquainted with the 
evidence on which C. C. Bowen was arrested and committed to 



21 

prison by General Sickles, on the charge of stealtng money from 
the freedmen. It is true that I was private secretary to Governor 
Scott, the same gallant soldier and worthy gentleman whose duty 
it became, as assistant commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau for 
South Carolina, to have Bowen arrested (for stealing) and to make 
him, through the military authorities, disgorge a large amount of 
his ill-gotten gains. 

It is true that I am " well known in Texas." In the summer of 
1865, as acting United States provost marshal over twenty counties 
of that State, I arrested many criminals, some of whom were exe- 
cuted for the crime of murder, after a fair and impartial trial, on far 
less evidence than that adduced to prove that C. C. Bowen mur- 
dered Colonel White, by the hands of a hired assassin, in his bed- 
room at Georgetown, S. C, in November, 1864, for which bloody 
deed he escaped punishment, through the flight of his accomplice, 
after a full confession. He was confined in prison here on that 
charge, and was released at the general jail delivery made by the 
United States forces on their entry into Charleston, in 1865. 

This dark but truthful story of Bowen's crimes, is not inconsis- 
tent with his ante-war record. 

He came tu this city in 1859 as the head of a band of the lowest 
class of gamblers, and soon signalized his advent by stealing a 
valuable set of faro checks from an establishment in this city, which 
checks he sold in New York, where they were recovered by their 
owner, together with the written proof of Bowen's guilt. This fact 
I can prove by a "cloud of witnesses." The municipal authorities 
of this city have been frequently appealed to during the past month 
by his wife at Louisville, whom he has abandoned, although a 
worthy woman, to aid her in securing a support from him, while he 
is living in open. infamy with another in this city. 

Bowen charges that I "preside over so-called Union Leagues, 
where, for a fee of fifty dollars, he puts through resolutions to 
slander good Eepublicans." 

It is true that I am president of the Union League of Charleston, 
the same League that subscribed money, earned by the hard hands 
of the laboring men who chiefly composed it, to feed Bowen's 
putative children in this city in 1867, while he was imprisoned in 
Castle Pinckney on the charge of stealing — a charge which the 
members of the League were led to believe untrue from his plau- 
sible representations and earnest protestations of innocence. The 



22 

resolutions to which Bowen refers were passed to denounce the 
proposed appointment of his friend, G. W. Clark, as collector of 
this port, and to stigmatize the political treachery of Senator F. A. 
SawjGx aiid C. C. Boweu. Guiely it did iiufc require 'a fee of fifty 
dollars" to induce me to support such resolutions. 

It is worthy of note, that United States Senator Sawyer, who is 
now Bowen's bosom friend and co-conspirator, was charged by 
Bowen, on oath, in July, 1868, with having committed the crime 
of perjury in taking the iron-clad oath — a charge which is true. 

I have thus briefly glanced at the criminal history of this 

"Honorable Representative from South Carolina." It is to be 

hoped that justice will yet overtake him, 

" And put in every honest hand a whip, 

To hxsh the rascal naked through the woi'ld." 

T. J. MACKEY. 

Charleston, August 10, 1869. 



CONGRESSMAN C. C. BOWEN IN A NEW ROLE. 

The following extract of a letter, received in Charleston was 
published in the Charleston News, of August 20, 1869. It forms 
an appropriate appendix to the preceding memoir of this "Honora- 
ble" Congressman. 

"At the time of the evacuation of the little Town of Jacksonville, 
Florida, by the Confederate forces and its citizens, in the latter 
part of 1861 or the early part of 1862, I was there, having been 
sent from Virginia (by a special application made by Governor 
Milton to President Davis) to drill some of the Florida State troops. 
I was the officer who conveyed the order from General Trapier 
(then commanding that department) to Major Charles Hopkins, 
(commanding Hopkins' Battalion) to proceed at once to Jackson- 
ville, for his batalion was then at Baldwin, and burn the saw 
mills in and around the place, together with the foundry and any 
other buildings that might prove serviceable to the enemy, but 



•23 

*to spare and protect as far as possible all private dwellings and 
property, except such as was specially specified in the orddi-.' The 
enemy's gunboats had, I believed at the time of the burning, the 
very night crossed the fcjt. John's bar, and were cautiously leeiing 
their way up the river. The saw mills and foundry, as was order- 
ed, were soon consigned to the flames, as was also the large hotel, 
(the Judson House,) and several stores — the stores and hotel, 
however, not by hands of Hojjhins' Battalion. Mr. Bowen was 
one of the perpetrators of this outrage, and I will hero state, on 
the word and honor of a man, 'that, on the night of the fire in 
Jacksonville, / sa%v him one of the prime movers and instigators 
va. i\ie guttiyig of C. L. Eobinson's store. I there saw him move 
and assist in moving blankets and sheets filled with goods and 
merchandise stolen from said store, and knowing, too, that Mr. 
Robinson was a 'good Union man,' so-called ; and mark me, at 
this time this ^ HoJiorahle' gentleman, C. C. Bowen, did not belong. 
nor was he in (i7iy ivise connected with any organized Confederate 
force, but came to Jacksonville, upon this occasion, solely for the 
purpose of pillage and plunder, and the goods he stole, fw he did 
steal them, he appriated to himself. 

"He was at that time known iu Jacksonville and around the east- 
ern part of Florida as a low. mean, contemptible, one-horse 
gambeler,' one who would lie or steal whenever it suited him to 
do so. He was at or about that time, I think, associated with a 
man by the name of Woodward, also a gambler, but by far a more 
decent man than Bowen. Woodward, since the war, has been 
imprisoned on charges made against him by C. L. Robinson for 
acts said to have been committed on that same night. Woodward 
was not the man who should have been confined. Mr. Bowen ie 
the gentleman. I have given you this little item of his history, so 
that he may know that the world knows him. I am perfectly wil- 
ling at any time to substantiate what I have wrtten, by any 
number of witnesses." 



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